The early morning brought with it glinty light over the horizon and the sounds of people waking for their morning shifts and returning from their evening ones - and woke Minerva Golding from her sleep with her hand almost numb from how tightly she had clenched her fist. She lifted her head and whispered with reverent quiet as she looked down at what she held.
The wand.
The magogram.
The...
Everything.
She had managed to get to sleep only after what felt like an eternity of sitting and staring and thinking, her eyelids dragged down by the crushing weight of her workday. Now, despite not having any work to go too, she felt the pressure of the oncoming day like a freight train bearing down on her. She lifted the wand that she still held, and formed the magic words, her tongue fumbling, her heart thudding.
"
Kemb Awer Foda."
Flick. Flick. Point.
The wand point glowed and the little table she had to herself suddenly had an apple on it - perfect and green and ripe. She picked it up, slowly, and whispered to herself. "It's real." The harsh light of the sun shining through the window was enough proof for that. The faint clink and clatter she could hear through the thin door of her bedsit made her heart skip a beat. Petunia. She came to her feet, shrugged on her gown, and then opened the sit, before she had even brushed her hair or tried to clean her teeth. She saw Petunia shuffling from her room, her crutch under one arm. She had the determined expression she normally did when she was getting ready to go about town.
"Oh, hey Minerva," she said. "Good morning. Sleep w-ah!" Her voice turned into a yelp as Minerva took her hand and tugged her into the tiny room.
"Sit! Sit!" Minerva said, throwing the door shut with a soft clack. Petunia looked at her quizzically.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Watch," Minerva said, holding up the wand.
"What's that?" Petunia looked confused. "A...something from your job? They make tools, right?"
"It's...oh, I'll just show you," Minerva said. She turned to the table, then lifted the wand. "
Kemb Awer Foda!"
Flick, flick, point.
Nothing.
The wand didn't glow. It did grow hot against her palm, though, and a jolt of pain shot up her arm. Minerva bit her lip to keep from crying out in alarm.
Petunia looked even more bemused. "Was that...Yiddish?" she asked.
Minerva looked down at the wand, her hand tightening on the grip. She looked at it the same way a soldier would have looked if his rifle had refused to work while storming a trench. "It should have worked," she said, examining the wand. "I..." She looked back at Petunia, then wondered if she should even bother trying to explain everything she had seen last night, everything she had done. She reached out, taking the apple on the table, then held it to Petunia. "This is an apple, right?" She asked, her voice hesitant - a sudden, sneaking worry that she had gone completely mad creeping into her.
Petunia was looking worried now. "Yes, Minerva, this is an apple," she said, taking it. "When did you get this? And where have you been keeping it?" She glanced about herself in the tiny bedsit.
"Well, uh, I got it for you!" Minerva said, nodding. "You deserve something sweet."
"It looks like one of those queer green apples from Australia," Petunia said, eyeing it. "But, yes, thank you." She bit into it, and chewed, nodding slowly, her eyes closing as she chewed slower and slower. "Mm!" She wiped daintily at her lips - a gesture that made Minerva look quite closely to watch those delicate fingers slip along her chin, scooping up luscious juice. It made Minerva's heart race and her skin tingle for some inexplicable reason. Maybe casting magic left her feeling...tingly? The thought scattered as Petunia announced. "This is delicious! Thank you so much, Minerva."
"I'm glad," Minerva said. Silence hung between her and Petunia for a moment longer, before Petunia started to get to her feet.
"Well, I have to get to my duties," she said. "Remember, idle hands are the devil's playthings, Minerva!" she bit into the apple one handed as she started off and Minerva let her go, shaking her head slowly as she watched.
There was only one way to learn why the wand hadn't worked - to learn if she had gone mad or not.
She had to get to the intersection of Tottenham and Gower.
***
Minerva took the Underground; normally, she'd have gone from from Whitechapel station to Tottenham Court Road station, but the line Circle Line was under renovations that seemed to be dragging on forever. Instead, she walked all the way to Hammersmith, then emerged at the brand new and sparklingly beautiful Gower Station. Emerging onto the road, she asked a newsboy who was stacking up the sheets for the day's sales where the intersection with Tottenham was. He looked at her with intense condescension for someone who couldn't have been more than twelve. "You're the second to ask me that today and I'll say what I said last time: There ain't one! Want the Daily Mail?"
Minerva made a face, shaking her head. She started to walk down Gower, and found the first intersection - but it wasn't to Tottenham. What it was, though, was a road that, itself, intersected with Tottenham. Finding Tottenham and looking up and down it in the hustle and the bustle of London pedestrians, she saw the problem.
Tottenham and Gower were parallel streets. She didn't see any sign of them
intersecting;
they both just ended into the same streets which in no way could be called intersections with each other. She frowned and started to walk along Tottenham, looking at the walls and the windows of shops that she passed. She was so focused, in fact, that she barely noticed the boy until she ran smack dab into him and the two of them went sprawling in front of a women's boutique shop. She hit the ground on her side, while the boy collapsed onto his back, and both of their belongings went scattering - her purse, his jacket (which he had slung over his arm due to the rather stifling heat) and some odds and ends from their pockets.
Minerva, her heart thudding with terror, saw that her wand had rolled out among the belongings. The boy, rangy and lanky with limbs that looked like they still hadn't quite recovered from the growth spurts of puberty, rubbed at his head with his hands. "Sorry," he said. "I was completely caught up-"
He yelped as he saw Minerva snatching up her wand.
"That's mine," he said, hurriedly, and reached out for the wand - at the same time that Minerva saw another wand, just like it, sitting next to his shoe. Minerva gaped at him. He reached for the wand, but she shook her head and pointed.
"There, there," she said, and he saw the other wand. Snatching it up, he and she stood, both of them flushed and panting and trembling like racehorses.
The boy himself continued the impression of storklike height when he stood - and the impression of fitting badly in his clothing and his body only grew more intense. He hunched slightly and looked furtive and suspicious. This wasn't helped by the fact he had a rather serious scar - it looked like an old burn wound that wrapped around the outer edge of his left cheek, only imperfectly concealed by hair he had let grow far too long and unkempt for a proper youth. His hair was dark, his eyes were green, and he smiled, weakly. "Yes, really..." He looked like he was braced for a flurry of...
Of what?
Minerva squared her shoulders. She held out her hand, woman's fashion. "Minerva Golding," she said. "If I've guessed right, I've been accepted into the Hexagramatica, just like you."
The boy's expression became even more confused. He opened his mouth, closed it. Then blurted out: "You don't...recognize me?" he asked.
"Should I? I only just got a telegram yesterday, I know little else," Minerva said, nodding. "I...I had no idea magic even existed until then." She admitted that with a nervous smile.
"Oh!" The boy said. "Oh! I'm Harry! Harry...I'm Harry!"
He looked, for reasons that escaped her, absolutely delighted.
"Well, Harry," Minerva said, noticing the lack of a surname there. "Have you been a, uh, a wizard for long?"
"What sort of question is that?" he asked, seeming quite confused by the notion he could be anything but. "I live with my uncle, Mr. Vilamont. But this is the first year I've gotten the letter invitation to Hexagramatica - it's an extremely prestigious school." He cut himself off before he said any more. "Come, you want to see Old Fleet Market." He smiled, gesturing her to follow after him. She followed eagerly, and the crowd parted ways for him - she wasn't sure if it was because he was a man or because of the scar. They came to a small gray wall between a cafe and a bookshop, and there, Harry turned to flash her a wry little grim.
"We call it Impossible Intersection," he said, pulling his wand, then tapping onto the largest stone in the wall - twice. The stone glowed faintly and then the whole wall unfolded itself like it was a clever machine rather than unmoving stone. The bricks collapsed inwards and away, and revealed a widening gap between the buildings, which broke apart the further away from the entrance it got - widening outwards to reveal...impossibly blue sky. Stones floated like they were bubbles in glass ornaments, but they floated above a vast blue that belonged above the clouds, not between two buildings. Harry took Minerva's hand, guiding her through the door and onto the stones, his feet stepping between them casually as they stepped beyond the buildings...
And...
And well.
"Impossible undersells it, I think," Minerva whispered as she stood stalk still on a stone that floated before a vast, puffy white cloud - and emerging from that cloud was an inverted rectangular structure of interlocking stairways and buttresses and other flights of architectural fancy. Walking along those pathways - their heads and feet completely glued to the stone, no matter how much it flaunted the sense of up and down that Minerva had thought was sure and certain her whole life, were men and women in fine coats, smoking jackets, flowing robes and fine dresses. They went into shops that had shingles that were impossible to read because they were upside down or perpendicular to the ground, and they laughed and spoke to one another on empty landings that were just as likely to be upside down as right side up. From the upper edges of the impossible building, she could see people flying away on broomsticks, soaring off into the sky.
